Kids are Cruel
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Billy had a friend Called Donald with A face like a donkey And teeth like a duck. They used to run amuck In school playgrounds And forests where they'd Hide in trees and launch Frozen peas at old people Squatting under home-spun Canopies. But aged twelve, Billy shelved affection For his friend with the distorted face. He changed his name to Will and started Having sex and carrying a briefcase. When Will avoided him at school, Donald took to ducking classes And covering his facial anomalies With sticking plasters. But Will was not impressed And left his former side-kick Alone in his world of lop-sided features That seemed to have been Inherited from several different Alien creatures. Donald sat vainly in their childhood tree Where his face grew long and green With pre-pubescent jilted lover's weeping. He cried for one week, then fell asleep, Dreaming mournful cess, Mouth gaping doomed distress. It was winter. The peas froze And slid icily from the leaves Above, filling mouth and nose Absorbing breath, choking grief. He fell without a cinematic thud. Jagged frame sank lifeless in the mud. Forty six years later Will Tried to find Donald For a school reunion.
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Poem Study Notes:This poem was written in 2002, after the poet had attended (and in fact helped to organise) his first school-reunion-organised-via-social-media event. The poet feels privileged to be a member of the generation which is old enough to remember the time when nobody kept in touch with anybody except their closest one or two school friends, but young enough to witness a time when it is getting increasingly rare to lose touch with anybody, like it or not! Increasing longevity of relationships may then raise the question of the depth of those relationships, which is a possible main theme for this poem. I have never fired frozen peas at anyone, though I do remember a time, aged around eleven, when a friend and I concealed ourselves in a ditch at the edge of the forest and fired spud guns at passing cars. One angry driver stopped and chased us...
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